For some reason (ugh), last night I decided to re-watch the fantastic and fantastically disturbing 2006 film Children of Men. According to a quick search of Twitter, I was not alone.
Children of Men is having a remarkable resurgence — not just because of its tenth anniversary but because of its unsettling relevance at the conclusion of this annus horribilis. There have been glowing reappraisals on grounds both sociopolitical and artistic. It’s getting the kind of online attention it sorely lacked ten years ago, generating recent headlines like “The Syrian Refugee Crisis Is Our Children of Men Moment” and “Are We Living in the Dawning of Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men?” As critic David Ehrlich put it in November, “Children of Men may be set in 2027,” but in 2016, “it suddenly became clear that its time had come.”
Children of Men imagines a fallen world, yes, but it also imagines a once-cynical person being reborn with purpose and clarity. It’s a story about how people like me, those who have the luxury of tuning out, need to awaken. This has been a brutal year, but we were already suffering from a kind of spiritual infertility: The old ideologies long ago stopped working. In a period where the philosophical pillars supporting the global left, right, and center are crumbling, the film’s desperate plea for the creation and protection of new ideas feels bracingly relevant.
Tons of spoilers in that Vulture article linked above, so don’t read it until you’ve watched the movie. Children of Men is presently streaming and rentable on various services.
Update: Here’s a fantastic ‘case study’ on Children of Men by The Nerdwriter:
[…] has come into his own with this picture. Fans of his previous work may feel he had already arrived (Children of Men is a masterpiece, yes) but bear with me. The lengthy single takes that Cuarón is known for often […]